"Somewhere in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co., at Charing Cross, there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch-box with my name, John H. Watson, M.D., painted upon the lid. It is crammed with papers, nearly all of which are records of cases to illustrate the curious problems which Mr. Sherlock Holmes has at various times to examine."

Saturday, August 24, 2024

Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell (2024)

Nicholas Meyer is back with his sixth Holmes novel. 

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson cross the Atlantic at the height of World War I in pursuit of a mysterious coded telegram in this new mystery from the author of The Return of the Pharaoh.

June, 1916. With a world war raging on the continent, exhausted John H. Watson, M.D. is operating on the wounded full-time when his labors are interrupted by a knock on his door, revealing Sherlock Holmes, with a black eye, a missing tooth and a cracked rib. The story he has to tell will set in motion a series of world-changing events in the most consequential case of the detective’s career.

Amid rebellion in Ireland and revolution in Russia, Germany has a secret plan to win the war and Sir William Melville of the British Secret Service dispatches the two aging friends to learn what the scheme is before it can be put into effect. In pursuit of a mysterious coded telegram sent from Berlin to an unknown recipient in Mexico, Holmes and Watson must cross the Atlantic, dodge German U-boats and assassination attempts, and evade the intrigues of young J. Edgar Hoover, while enlisting the help of a beautiful, eccentric Washington socialite as they seek to foil the schemes of Holmes’s nemesis, the escaped German spymaster Von Bork.

Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell plunges Holmes into a world that eerily resembles our own, where entangling alliances, treaties, and human frailty threaten to create another cataclysm.


Title: Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell 
Author: Nicholas Meyer
Year: 2024
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Purchase: Amazon.comAmazon.co.uk

Saturday, August 10, 2024

Moriarty (2008)

John Gardner's long-delayed third book in his Professor Moriarty trilogy, originally titled The Redemption of Moriarty, was published posthumously in 2008 as just Moriarty.

Bestselling British novelist John Gardner published two books purporting to be the true history of Professor James Moriarty, archenemy of Sherlock Holmes, the Napoleon of crime. The books - The Return of Moriarty and The Revenge of Moriarty - were praised as stand-alone volumes set in a vividly accurate Victorian London and a stunning vision of the underworld of the time, inhabited by the kind of men and women who lived and preyed on the society of the late 19th century. 
Now it is the turn of the century and Moriarty has been away from London for several years, realizing his plans to set up crime syndicates in major U. S. cities. He is suddenly called back to London where his vast criminal society has been overrun by a rival concern led by the shadowy Sir Jordan 'Mad Jack' de Levant - a supposed gentleman hoodlum who is acting on behalf of the leaders of well-known criminal elements in France, Italy, Spain and Germany. 
Moriarty lives again and revolts against the upstart criminals who have attempted to oust him from his rightful place as king of all criminal endeavour.

Title: Moriarty
Author: John Gardner
Year: 2008
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Purchase: Amazon.comAmazon.co.uk

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